Car insurance Cancelled, do I stand in a strong position to get this reversed

nyg18

So back in June 2016, I took out insurance with Churchill and paid the full premium up front. I sent the the NCB and all was dandy.

Came back from holiday to find just the one letter explaining that they were cancelling by insurance due to non payment!?

Rang them to gather more detail and turns out my NCB had crossed over a few days with the new car I bough so I needed to pay £30 or so, however this wasn't relayed to me at all despite Churchill claiming they sent 2 letters? (They sent no email either)

I called before the last day of the cancellation notice and offered to pay as I had no reason not to but they refused. So i had to take a new policy out with them, which costed the same anyway.

Now, from what I've seen I now got to declare cancellation of policy forever, which seems extremely unreasonably given the context behind this.

So where do I stand? am I likely to get this removed? If I take it further?
How can I find out if Churchill have actually reported this to a centralised database as a non payment .

Thanks in advance

huckster

You don't have to declare forever. Suggest you complain to Churchill customer relations. They can't cancel Insurance due to such minor issues under FCA rules ( ICOBS). If Churchill had your payment details and permission to collect further amounts, after providing relevant notice, then they could have collected the extra £30. This is what other Insurers do, to avoid such cancellations.

And it is no surprise the cancellation notice was not received. They have to provide minimum 7 days notice, but in their large print centres they have no idea whether letters are actually printed and posted. Ask them for confirmation from their printers it was actually printed and proof the letter was actually posted. They won't have such proof. Thousands of documents are printed everyday and they have no accurate tracking system. All these large Insurers are the same.

The cancellation won't be reported to a central database related to any problem issue e.g fraud. It is just a hiccup in admin processes arranging Insurance. But you need to complain, as Churchill shoukd be handling these matters better.